Lincoln, Neb. – The San Jose State women's basketball team held its own for the first 30 minutes, but in the fourth quarter Nebraska outscored them 34-14 and cruised to a 96-63 victory on Saturday afternoon.
Cydni Lewis led the Spartan with 15 points and nine rebounds and Analyss Benally scored 14, including four three pointers which moved her into 13th place on the program's all-time three-point list. Benally has 79 threes in her career and is now one behind Kim Skaggs for 12th place. Megan Anderson also hit a three, the 59th of her career, to tie Myzhanique Ladd for 18th place on the career list.
"Cydni had a really good weekend for us," head coach Jamie Craighead said. "With the short bench we had she had to play inside and outside, but she has the ability to be a very special player for us and in our conference. If we can get her to play every night like she did this weekend, she will be tough for anyone to stop. And when Analyss is hitting shots off the bench it really helps all our players to relax and our offense feeds off her. She did a great job coming in early on and hitting some shots which got us going and kept us close."
Nebraska (4-5) used a decided height advantage; they had only one starter under 6-1, to dominate the paint. The rebounding margin was 56-to-28, including 22-to-6 on the offensive glass. They used that advantage to out score the Spartans 56-to-22 in the paint and 27-0 in second chance points.
"Nebraska is a good team and when they started to get the inside game going in the second half it really doomed us and that opened up the outside game for them," Craighead said. "I thought the first five minutes of the second half were very tough for us, but we battled back. However, by the time we got the fourth we were gassed and they really took advantage of that."
The Spartans were down 62-49 after three periods, but in the fourth they ran out of steam. The Huskers opened the quarter on an 11-0 run and never looked back. Twice they pushed the lead to 36 points, at 90-54 with 2:56 to go and again at 92-56 with just over two minutes to play, before finishing the game with the 33-point victory.
In the fourth Nebraska hit 15-of-21 from the floor (71.4 percent) generating 24 of their 34 points in the period in the paint. The Spartans made 4-of-13 (30.8 percent) and 2-of-4 from three-point range.
Both teams struggled to shoot in the first 10 minutes. SJSU hit just 3-of-15 (20 percent) while the Cornhuskers were 6-of-21 (28.6 percent) in the opening quarter.
Going a combined 0-10 in the first two minutes of the game, neither team could find its rhythm. With the score 2-2 at the 5:29 mark, Benally hit the first of her threes to give San José State (1-7) its first lead. Slightly more than a minute later she did it again to give SJSU its last lead, 8-6, with just under four minutes left in the period. Nebraska finished the quarter with a 5-0 run to take a 14-8 advantage into the second period.
In the second and third quarters both teams shot over 40 percent, but Nebraska slowly pried open the lead. The Spartans trailed 34-26 at the half and 62-49 by the end of the third.
For the game SJSU hit 37 percent (23-of-62) of its shot attempts, including 42 percent from distance (11-of-26). Nebraska was 41-of-80 from the floor (51 percent) and 10-of-27 from beyond the three-point line (37 percent).
Nebraska had four player in double figures led by Kate Cain's 16 points and 17 rebounds. Ashtyn Veerbeek had 14 points and 14 boards.
San José State returns to The Event Center on Saturday, December 15 for its final non-conference home game of 2018. The Spartans host cross-town rival Santa Clara with tipoff scheduled for 4:00 p.m. The game will be the front half of a doubleheader with the men's team hosting Northern Arizona at 7:00 p.m.